I am quite unbelievably pleased to announce that my odd little musical/biographical/historical/genealogical not-quite-a-memoir thing, TAKE IT COOL, has found a publisher, in the form of the excellent Two Ravens Press.

As you may be aware, this has not been an easy process. Large numbers of agents and publishers – sixty-odd in all – have had this manuscript sitting in their slushpile. Most of them, I suspect, took one look at the synopsis and ran a mile. I can’t really blame them, because it’s one of those things that doesn’t fit any standard template. However, there were a select few who said they liked the writing and that someone would eventually love it enough to take it on. Even if it wouldn’t be them.

But still no-one said yes, and I was beginning to get a bit despondent. So I decided to take the initiative and run the book as a blog, just to see if there was an audience. I wanted to know if I was kidding myself. I did this with my first book, MRS DARCY VERSUS THE ALIENS (although there was a further motive in that case, which was to motivate myself to actually finish the bloody thing), and it did in fact get a publisher just a few weeks before it finished. I’m not even sure if the fact that it was out there for everyone to read had any direct impact on the publishing decision. What I do know is that I wouldn’t have had the confidence to continue touting MRS DARCY around if I hadn’t known that I did indeed have an audience who were avidly following my blog.

In some ways I was less confident about finding an audience for TAKE IT COOL. There weren’t any big cliffhangers (apart from the will-I-won’t-I-finally-find-Dennis-Pinnock thing) and there were several disparate threads to the story that made it less compatible with blogging. However, I was extremely gratified to find that I did indeed gather an audience. Not only that, but a handful of the celebs that I pestered to look at it on Twitter gave me encouraging responses. I wasn’t deluding myself, after all.

So when brilliant short story writer and Facebook chum David Rose posted that Two Ravens Press were open to submissions, I went in with renewed enthusiasm. Samantha Hawkins, who has recently taken over TRP, responded very quickly and positively and suddenly everything seemed possible again.

This means a hell of a lot to me. TAKE IT COOL is a highly personal project, and one that I’ve been trying to write, on and off, since 2005. I’d like to think it’s one of those things that might develop a bit of word of mouth and spread out a bit further than its original market (whatever that is). And if it helps Dennis sell a few more records, well so much the better.

About this Site

My name's Jonathan Pinnock. I lead a dual life. In one half of this, I run a software development company called Jonathan Pinnock and Associates. If you've come here looking for that, here's where you need to go.

However, if you've come here to find out about the other half of my life, as a writer of fiction and non-fiction, you've come to the right place.

If, on the other hand, you've arrived here by accident whilst searching for Japanese Tentacle Porn, I suggest you try using a different search engine.

There's quite a lot of stuff on this site (apart from the blog), but if you want to find your way around, the sitemap is probably a good place to start as any.

If you'd like to contact me, my e-mail address is jon AT jonathanpinnock DOT com. If you'd like to sign up for my exciting new newsletter, please fill in this form:

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Books

The bio-historico-musicological-memoir thing Take It Cool was published by Two Ravens Press in July 2014.

Signed copies

Dedication (if required)

The Scott Prize-winning short story collection Dot Dash was published by Salt in November 2012.